The reality is that a full time rugby league editor at a public service broadcaster (and let's be honest there are probably stacks of aspiring journalists hoping one day for this sort of opportunity) should have the following characteristics:
A passion for the game
Equal enthusiasm levels for both the city's professional clubs
Encyclopedic knowledge of both clubs' players and academy prospects
Good in-depth knowledge of all Super League clubs and working knowledge of the NRL
Articulate commentary that allows the listener to visualise play as it happens, and judgement to support accurate and fair summaries
To me there's little evidence of the above amongst any of the RH commentary team. Obviously we'll forgive Murdock a bit for his lack of SL insight (he doesn't have Sky) because for years he's had to be the only member of the team without Rovers bias. The context of the coverage they now present is an editor who references calling Neil Hudgell regularly at home of an evening and opens apologetic post match interviews with Craig Sandercock with "well it never rains but it pours" and regularly cites the fact that Sandercock has never had every member of his squad fit at the same time. Like he's unique in this respect. The two "expert summarisers" are an ex Rovers player who starts every sentence with "d'you know" and another who uses social media to accuse FC's board of feeding fans "horse s**t".
If this is the best, most articulate and insightful reportage set-up available from the BBC with appropriate balance of enthusiasm and critique, I'd be surprised. The comments made about the woman off The Chase are poor; I didn't know who she was but judging by her picture her BMI's about 1.2 points lower than Weyman's for starters.
Before I get accused of only seeing what I want in local media, I'll say again that in my view the HDM are pro FC and some of their articles, like the one about Miller's ecstasy on getting his visa, are so OTT it's a bit weird.
